Article Summary and Analysis 6

Article Title: Motivating and engaging students in reading

Author: Cambria, J. and Guthrie, J.T.

Journal: The NERA Journal 46 (1), 2010, pgs. 16-29.

Summary

              This article aims to define and categorize motivation and offer suggestions to teachers on how to motivate their students.  This article, which is written more for the teaching community as opposed to the scholarly community, breaks down motivation into three categories: interest, dedication, and confidence.  “An interested student reads because he enjoys it; a dedicated student reads because he believes it is important, and a confident student reads because he can do it” (Cambria & Guthrie, 2010).  The article goes into the most detail on dedication by breaking it down into the subcategories of persistence, value, and planning; the researchers also differentiate between dedication and intrinsic motivation, and show how dedication affects reading achievement.

              The article then delves into teaching practices that will increase reading motivation in both elementary and secondary classrooms.  The six practices for secondary classrooms are creating relationships, building success, assuring relevance, fostering awareness, affording choices, and arranging social goals.

Analysis

              In my previous blog post, I mentioned how the author, Wigfield, is one of the big names in reading motivation research.  This article is co-written by another of the big names – Guthrie.  However, instead of detailing a research process, this article speaks directly to teachers and gives practical advice on how to recognize motivation and how to foster it in the classroom.  The three breakdowns of motivation here are simplifications of the more detailed breakdowns as listed my previous blog post and that I have seen referenced in other articles.  A lot of good information is provided here for the literature review and background areas of my research paper.

              As for the teaching practices targeting reading motivation, I aim to incorporate three of them into my sustained silent reading program.  The three I will include are fostering awareness, affording choices, and arranging social goals.  The article’s section on affording choices is enlightening because it defines choice as more than just a free choice of book.  Choice also revolves around reading with a partner, taking notes or not, and asking questions or not.

References

Cambria, J. and Guthrie, J.T. (2010).  Motivating and engaging students in reading.  The NERA Journal 46 (1), 16-29.  Retrieved from http://literacyconnects.org/img/2013/03/Motivating-and-engaging-students-in-reading-Cambria-Guthrie.pdf

Article Summary and Analysis 5

Article Title: Dimensions of children’s motivation for reading and their relations to reading activity and reading achievement

Author: Baker, L. and Wigfield, A.

Journal: Research Reading Quarterly 34 (4), Winter 1999, pgs. 452-477.

Summary

              In this article, Baker and Wigfield look to further research some of Wigfield’s earlier work in categorizing children’s reading motivation.  In a 1997 study, Wigfield and another researcher, Guthrie, “conceptualized 11 different dimensions of reading motivation” (Baker & Wigfield, 1999) but when those dimensions were studied, only eight of them produced enough evidence to prove.  This 1999 study looked to find evidence for the other three dimensions, and build stronger evidence for the proven eight, by using a larger sample size.

              The eight proven dimensions of reading motivation are:

·       self-efficacy

·       challenge

·       work avoidance

·       curiosity

·       involvement

·       recognition

·       competition

·       social

The three proposed dimensions that were not proven are:

·       importance

·       compliance

·       grades

              Through questionnaires and reading tests given to 371 elementary students, the 1999 study found evidence to support all of the original proposed eleven dimensions.  The dimensions that were the most strongly related to reported reading activity were self-efficacy, challenge, curiosity, and involvement.  The study also went further into breaking down ties between motivation and reading performance, and the differences in motivation among races and gender, but since those are not applicable to my proposed research study, I will not include those.

Analysis

              After reading other articles regarding reading motivation, I kept seeing Wigfield’s name pop up in literature reviews, so I figured I would go straight to the source and find out what his work was about.  This study is helpful to my proposed study because it breaks down different factors of reading motivation.  The eleven dimensions listed above were put into three categories: competence and efficacy, intrinsic and extrinsic, and social purposes.  While I have seen these three areas of motivation pop up in other studies I have read, I had not seen them broken down further.  This will be useful information for my literature review to further define research and clarify my aim.  I feel that my proposed interview questions, while not as detailed as the ones Baker and Wigfield used, do address these three categories of motivation, but now I can point to which subcategory they target. 

References

Baker, L. & Wigfield, A. (1999). Dimensions of children’s motivation for reading and their relations to reading activity and reading achievement. Research Reading Quarterly 34 (4), 452-477. Retrieved from www.jstor.org

Article Summary and Analysis 4

Article Title: Becoming the reading mentors our adolescents deserve: developing a successful sustained silent reading program

Author: Lee, V.

Journal: Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 55 (3), November 2011, pgs. 209-218.

Summary

            In this article, Lee describes the steps she took to create a popular and successful sustained silent reading (SSR) program in her classroom.  She followed the advice of researcher J.L. Pilgreen who detailed eight factors for creating an effective SSR program.  Those eight factors are: access, appeal, conducive environment, encouragement, staff training, non-accountability, follow-up activities, and distributed time to read (2011, p. 211).

            Some key aspects of these factors are that the teacher must also read during the SSR time, the students should be allowed to read anything (magazines, catalogs, web based articles, etc.), and students should fill out a reading log with goals for each student. Lee also advised teachers not to punish students who were resistant to the idea at first, but to engage them in conversation in order to find some kind of text they would enjoy.  Regarding non-accountability and follow-up activities, Lee advocates that students not be graded or forced to do any work for their reading. However, she does recommend providing students with recommendations on what to do when they finish reading.  These recommendations range from reading other books by the author to writing a book review for the school newsletter.

            Lee considers that her SSR program was a success in her classroom because the students eventually demanded more time to read and started holding each other accountable for their behaviors during the SSR time.

Analysis and Application

            Lee’s tale of turning a struggling SSR program into a successful one provides many great pieces of advice for teachers.  Four aspects of her program I am going to borrow for my research study are teacher modeling, book logs, non-accountability, and allowing students to read anything.  If the teacher does not model the same behavior he or she expects of the students, why would the students buy in?  Telling students “reading is a wonderful activity that will help you in many ways,” and then grading papers or surfing the Internet would send the message that both reading is not important, and that your time is more valuable than theirs.  Books logs are an effective tool for students to be able to monitor their reading, so they can see trends or patterns to help guide themselves.  Including a reading goal may sound like creating a semblance of accountability, but this is merely for the student to realistically assess their reading.  Students will not be punished if goals are not met, nor will they be asked to share their goals with the class. Following this, making SSR a non-graded activity is important for students to feel comfortable and relaxed in their reading. Tying mandatory assignments or activities to the task could add stress and agitation which could create reduced motivation or further reading. Finally, allowing students to read anything will hopefully guide them to find joy in the activity.  Reading does not only take place with a physical book in one’s hand.  Graphic novels and magazines are just as relevant when it comes to reading as a book.  Plus, in the age of e-readers and online comics, teachers need to allow those options as well.  Shutting down students’ preferences for reading will not help to increase motivation for the activity, which is what I aim to do with this program.

References

Lee, V. (2011). Becoming the reading mentors our adolescents deserve: developing a successful sustained silent reading program. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 55.2, 209-218. doi: doi:10.1002/JAAL.00026